For anyone with an interest in the history of clothing, dress, textiles, lace and embroidery, paricularly of the early modern period, 1550-1750

Friday, 24 January 2014

Eighteenth century white waistcoats

Front view

The pictures shown here are of a white waistcoat in Banbury
Museum which dates to 1710 to 1720. Most people thinking of eighteenth century
waistcoats think of those that appear in portraits and match the coat, or of
the highly embroidered variety that are often on display in museums. White
waistcoats were often worn for informal wear or, especially if made of flannel
and/or completely unadorned, as under waistcoats. They rarely appear in paintings,
though Mr Andrews may be wearing one in Gainsborough’s Mr
and Mrs Andrews of 1748-9.

Detail of embroidery

Anne Buck quotes Lord Chesterfield as writing in a letter in
1764, “I have the warmest sense of your kindness in providing my old and
chilled carcase with such a quantity of flannel. I have cut my waistcoats
according to my cloth, and they come half way down my thigh.” The habit
continued through the century for in 1797 Parson James Woodforde recorded in
his diary that at the age of fifty seven he had, “put on a flannel
underwaistcoat for the first time in my life.” (1)

The linen embroidered versions of these waistcoats survive
in some numbers. Heather Toomer examines six in detail in her book.(2)

Detail of placket fastening

The example shown here in the Banbury Museum they have dated
to 1710-1720. At some point it has been altered to make it larger by the
addition of a strip at the side back. The front has buttons and buttonholes
hidden by a placket.

Some other extant white waistcoats

1720 A sleeved waistcoat with cord quilting is in the Museum
of London. It is described with a photograph by Zillah Halls (2),
however it cannot be found using the museum’s online search function.

Two waistcoats, 1730-40, altered around 1750-65, and a boy’s
cotton waistcoat which appears to have been cut down from a larger waistcoat
are in the collection of Colonial
Williamsburg, and are examined by Baumgarten. (4)

Plain rear view with insertion

c.1740 A sleeved waistcoat in the Met
Museum New York. Linen embroidered with a centre panel either side of the
front. This is a short waistcoat, only 26 and a half inches long, and has no
pockets.

c.1740 A waistcoat in linen embroidered completely across
the front, in the Met
Museum, New York. The lining is pale blue silk, and the buttons are worked
thread like Dorset buttons.

1744 waistcoat in the Victoria and Albert Museum http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O115879/waistcoat-unknown/The V&A consider this may have been made
for a wedding as in one corner it bears the initials PB and AB and the date
1744. The photograph on the website shows a detail of the embroidery and not
the whole waistcoat, it is the image that appears in Hart and North. (4)